


Patched

by helpmeimstuckon



Series: FitzSimmons Drabbles [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Cutting, F/M, Self-Harm, mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2630759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helpmeimstuckon/pseuds/helpmeimstuckon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz just can't do it any more. TW: self harm</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patched

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously though trigger warning. Self harm and mentions of past self harm.  
> I'm pulling apart my drabbles in to single chap fics in the same series. This was #6

He was getting bad again. The nightmares had come back, and he was having “dark thoughts” again, every time he closed his eyes he saw that man fall. He closed his eyes during the shot, but opened as May threw him off and he crumpled to the ground. All he could see was the man hitting the ground over and over and over.

He woke screaming night after night. Shoving his face into pillows to try and muffle the screams, he saw the same images flash by again and again. Garrett, betraying them. The nameless Hydra agent, crumpling to the ground. Jemma, falling from the plane. The latter had been flying past for weeks, but in the aftermath of the Hydra situation, it had come flying back in reinvigorated color. All of the nightmares were in full color.

But they had started to carry over into the day. He would be standing in the lab in the Bus in the providence bunker and start to feel it overwhelm him. He would run out in the middle of something, giving Jemma, and the ever present Triplett, an excuse about some forgotten piece of tech or another. Not that Jemma was concerned. She was too distracted by everything that was going on to realize. She had never been this distracted before when he had fallen apart. Then again, everything had changed.

Fitz had shut himself in his room and sunk to the floor for the third time in two days. His whole body shook with pure terror. His head was spinning, he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t get his heart to stop fucking pounding. Tears started pouring down his face.

“No, no, no, no, no.” He spat the word like it was poison. “Stop. Stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying.” Fitz hit his head with his hands. He pushed himself up right, propelling himself toward the bed. He reached his hand under the bed and grabbed his go bag, still muttering the quiet adage. He dug through and found the small carry-on shaving type case that he hadn’t opened since the academy. Unrolling the old kit sent a shudder down his spine. He ran his fingers over the thin sharp metal of the blades and let a sob tear through him.

I’m just over whelmed, he thought. The phrase mirrored what he used to parrot out at who ever had the time to be concerned, so normally Jemma. She’ll understand if she sees. She’ll… She’ll… He knew she would be pissed but he just couldn’t feel this anymore. The pain numbed him out before. It should have the same effect now.

He drew the blade from the case and threw the pack aside. He tore a hand towel from where they had been tossed on the bedside table. Letting himself slip to the hard wood floors he laid his arm over the towel and pushed his sleeve back.

He took a breath and pushed the blade in to his skin. The crimson spilled out across his fair complexion. He hissed and resisted the urge to pull his hand away. He pressed harder in to his skin, his body screaming for relief. He drew his cut down his arm and then pulled the blade clear. Adrenaline rushed to his brain to numb the searing pain. He watched the blood seep out on to the towel, staining the cream cloth red. A wave washed over him and, finally, Leo could breath.

Leo buttoned the cuffs of his sleeves as he walked back in to the lab. He had disinfected the cut, slapped a butterfly plaster over where it had split a little too far for comfort, and wrapped it old gauze from the blade case. It was a shit job at best but it would keep it clean enough, he hoped.

“Jemma,” He greeted fondly. “Triplett.” He greeted less fondly.

“Fitz, we were just wondering if you could look at the holo-table, it would make everything easier if it was up and running.” Triplett began talking at a rapid pace but Jemma’s eyes darted between Leo’s hands and his face. He could see her take in the tense look in his brows. The distinct curve of his lower lip that came from curling his tongue in residual pain. The tightly buttoned cuffs.

“Trip, do me a favor and leave.” Jemma cut the specialist off. She pulled back slightly realizing how rude she had sounded. “Sorry, could you give me and Fitz a bit?

“Sure, is something wrong?” The specialist’s eyebrows pulled together.

“No-”

“Yes-” Jemma glared at Fitz. “It’s nothing you need to be concerned with. Just, please, leave.”

The agent peered at the eye-locked scientists and cleared out.

“Fitz-”

“It’s nothing you need to be concerned with Jemma.”

“Let me see your arms.” Jemma stepped around to stand behind Leo. He had begun tinkering with something at the central table.

“No, why, what, no.” Leo dropped his head further.

“Leo Fitz. Let me see your arms.” She twisted him around by his bicep, and grabbed his wrist.

He twisted slightly but a glare from his partner silenced him as she unbuttoned and rolled up his right sleeve. The pale clean skin was scared but not cut, as she ran her fingers over it.

“There, see? I’m fine.” He moved to push by her, but she laid a hand on his chest.

“And the other one.”

“Seriously, Jemma, I’m fine!”

“Fitz. The other one.” Her calm was deadly. It was the still calm sky before everything went green and the heavens opened.

She rolled up the sleeve revealing the poorly wrapped gauze. She took a sharp breath and tightened her grip and peeled the gauze back revealing the cut.

Jemma lifted her gaze to him, equal parts pissed and concerned. “You fucking liar.” She dropped his hand down and pushed him away. “You bastard. You promised me! You promised you would come to me if this even crossed your mind!” Her voice rose to a shout as she swirled around the space and grabbed two different medical kits. Fitz couldn’t speak. He knew this would have been her reaction, he just misjudged how well she would be able to read him. “And then, you not only ignore my pleas that you come to me, you cut in to muscle. You’re lucky you didn’t hit any nerves, Fitz.”

“I know what I’m doing, Jemma.” His voice was soft, angry, and he glowered at her as she came back in front of him with a chair.

“That’s the main fear, Fitz.” She snapped at the chair in a ‘You. Sit. Now.’ gesture, and resumed digging through the bag. “Have you been doing this this whole time? Some of those scars are fresh.” She gestured to his other arm. “How long have you been doing this to yourself? Lying to me? Fitz?”

“No, Jemma, I swear. I was clean.” He lied. His face twisted begging her to look at him, begging her to believe him. “I haven’t been. Please, Jemma.” Her eyes darted to him, he could see the redness forming. They dropped back to the task at hand, ripping a package open and pulling a sterile needle free. She grabbed the suture thread and weaved it through the head of the pin. “I’ve- uh, I’ve been doing… this, off and on. Since… Sci-ops.” He watched he face contort in pain. She stayed silent as she stitched him up. Fitz opened and closed his mouth periodically, trying to think of something to say. She was finishing wrapping it up with gauze when he felt a tear land on his palm. “Jemma I-”

“You didn’t come to me. Not once.” She stuck medical tape on the bandages and went to roll his sleeve back down. “I told you I could help you with this. I told you I could help. I begged you to at least let me patch you up. I begged you.” Her voice was building in anger, she looked up at him eyes rimmed red. She crossed away from him.

“I couldn’t let you take this on as well. You took on everything. Everyone’s problems, everyone’s needs. I couldn’t make you take this on too.” He stood standing facing her.

“How long?” There was fire in her words. “How long has it been since last time?”

Fitz sighed. “A couple of weeks.” She let out a sharp noise that sent him over the edge. “It’s not something that I can just come to you with, Jemma. This is something I just had to work through!”

“And a bang up job you’ve been doing at that!” she shouted. “That’s utter horse shit. You couldn’t come to me? Like I would ever not be there!”

“But you haven’t been!” he roared. “We were inseparable. I thought I was irreplaceable. But apparently all it takes it muscles and a bit of hero behavior to be important in Jemma Simmons eyes. To be important enough to let the only person who has every fully understood you become a bloody foot note.”

“Fucking hell, Fitz! What is it with you hating Triplett so much? He’s not a bad guy!”

“He’s a cocky, arrogant, bastard who thinks so goddamn highly of himself; he probably is waiting for a call from the bloody Avengers!”

“Bullshit, and don’t pin this on him!” Jemma was crying freely now, words ripping from her mouth. “What is it really, Fitz? Because this isn’t you. You don’t act like this. You don’t do that without a reason. Trust me, I know.”

“How would you? You always claim that you could help but you’ve never even felt like this!”

As he spoke Jemma pulled off her polo. Fitz stopped talking suddenly. She began unbuttoning her shirt and dropped it to the ground.

A webbing of scars covered Jemma’s stomach. Fitz felt his jaw drop, seeing how red and puckered a few of the scars were. New. Fresh. “Jemma,” he breathed.

“Don’t you fucking dare tell me that I don’t know. Talk to me Fitz! I am not the enemy!”

“Jemma, why didn’t you tell me?” He furrowed his brow, anger brewing. Jemma dropped her gaze, jaw still tight. “You tell me I did a number on myself. Jemma, some of these are new! Jemma, look at me!”

“I can take care of myself, Fitz! I can patch my own damn wounds, okay!” Her eyes bore in to him. “I was fine on my own. Always have been!”

“Oh fuck that, Jemma! You have always played the hero! Even the hero needs help! I’m not just here for comic relief.”

“What is going on, Fitz!? What!? What have you not told me!?” Jemma roared.

“I KILLED SOMEONE!” Fitz roared back.

The room went quiet. Jemma took a deep breath, black-sports-bra-clad-chest heaving.

“What?” Jemma breathed.

Fitz leaned against the lab table feeling like something had been both released and taken from him. “I killed someone, Jemma. I couldn’t tell you. How could I tell you? You wouldn’t ever be able to look at me the same again. I couldn’t look at me the same.” Fitz pulled a breath through his teeth “He was attacking May, but it was still a person Jemma. I shot a man in the back. I can never take that back. I’m falling apart, and you’ve been gone from me.” He looked at her, “You have always fixed me. Where are you now?” He pushed himself upright and let the anger surge back through him “My entire planet is falling apart here, Jemma, and it seems to me that you have jumped right off it!”

Jemma took a hesitant step toward him, begging him not to pull away from her. “How,” she began placing her hand on his arm “could I ever,” she took a step closer ducking in to his sight line, “see you as anything less than what you are?” His eyes darted to her. Confused. “You are everything, Fitz. You are the stars.”

“How can you think anything of me anymore?”

“You saved May’s life. You saved the team. You saved me.” She ran a hand over Leo’s jaw. “You are a hero. You are my hero. No matter what happens. You have me.”

Fitz couldn’t help himself. He swept her in to a hug, grabbing her around the waist.

Jemma let her scars and his scars collide in that moment. She wasn’t okay, and neither was he. But they were better. They were patched. It wasn't perfect but it certainly could be fixed. And that they could do. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> And as always thank you to my lovely beta pandalandalopalis for making me coherent.   
> Was there any one line I nailed?


End file.
